Among my favorite types of books in my collection are ex-lib books—or as I like to think of them, retired library books. I received one in the mail recently, Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling by Thomas Hager, and handling it reminded me of why I love this form of book. For one…
I’m terrible when it comes to book ratings. I used to use them, but these days I’ve given up on them completely. I think of a 0-to-5 star rating as a bell curve where 3 stars fall right in the middle of the curve. If you get 3 stars, you are meeting expectations. Zero- and…
i. A few days ago, I finished reading The Age of Napoleon by Will Durant and Ariel Durant, the final entry in their 11-volume Story of Civilization series. It took me just shy of a quarter century to get through the books. Combined, they are the best history books I have ever read. It was…
2024 is turning out to be the Year of the Long Book, for me at least. I generally set myself a goal of 100 books a year, but that arbitrary. Some books are barely 100 pages, while others are over 1,000 pages. The goal of 100 books loomed large in my head for a time,…
I read 101 books in 2023. I also read around 300 feature articles in magazines. What follows is my top 10 best book reads of 2023 and some of my favorite articles of 2023. For those interested in more details of my overall reading for 2023, see the section that follow this which summarizes my…
Over Thanksgiving I read Patrick Stewart’s new memoir, Making It So, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Reading it put me in mind of Star Trek, even though Stewart’s time on the show and the films make up a relatively small portion of the book. I know little Star Trek lore beyond what most casual viewers…
With 2022 now behind us, I can safely post my list of 10 best reads of the year, without excluding any potential late-comers. This is actually the second draft of this post. The first draft came in at something over 2,500 words, and as I read it, I thought: No one wants to read this…
It is getting close to December which means close to our end-of-year holiday which means time I spend reading for guilty pleasure after a year of serious, hardcore reading. I’ve started to prepare a list of what to read and few days ago, on Twitter, I asked for some recommendations: For me, guilty-pleasure reading1 usually…
Here is what I read this week. Some of the articles/posts may require a subscription to read them. Once again, my article/blog reading was down this week because of my book reading and my renewed focus on fiction writing. Books Finished The Age of Voltaire: The Story of Civilization, Volume 9 by Will and Ariel Durant.…
Here is what I read this week. Some of the articles/posts may require a subscription to read them. I was heavily focused on book reading this week and so my article reading is down again. Books Finished The Age of Louis XIV: The Story of Civilization, Volume 8 by Will and Ariel Durant. I went into…
Here is what I read this week. Some of the articles/posts may require a subscription to read them. As you can see, I managed to read a bunch of books this week, but that ate into article reading time, so my article/post reading was way down this week. Books Finished A Darkness More Than NIght…